Why no Near Shoring?

I have stated before in this blog that ‘near shoring’ should be part of New Brunswick’s economic development strategy. For the past 5-6 years, outsourcing IT and back office functions to India and other ‘offshore’ locations has grown substantially. However, two years ago, backlash in the U.S. over privacy concerns and other less logical reasons, forced many companies to limit offshore outsourcing. As a result, the Indian companies that do the outsourcing started to slowly set up operations in North America. These ‘near shore’ facilities are combined with the offshore ones to provide clients with a blended, cost effective alternative.

I stated back then and continue to state that New Brunswick should be the top location for these near shore centres. According to a recent Financial Post article, dozens of these near shore operations employing tens of thousands of programmers and other specialists have been set up in North America in the past two years – and none in New Brunswick.

Why not?

We attracted over 30 of these centres during the 1990s.